The Girl Who Drank the Moon: Beautiful and Magical

The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Beautiful book on finding one's power and what it means to be a family

I read this book as a facilitator for an online kids' book club during Covid-19 quarantine. What a beautiful book! So well-written, so evocative, so magical. The characters are well fleshed-out and weird and varied and wonderful. The themes are so relevant to our times: the importance (and dangers) of storytelling (or controlling the narrative) and censorship, family and love, and hope winning over sorrow. I love the swamp monster, Glerk, who is at once Beast, Bog, World, and Poet. I love how poetry also forms part of this book and reveals so much about the foundational nature of the written and spoken word. The main narrative is interspersed with mini (and meta) narratives...stories woven into the story. I love the unusual family that is made up of a witch, a magical girl, a swamp monster, and a dragonling. I couldn't put it down! This made the quarantine bearable and gave me something to look forward to. It was also a wonderful bonding tool for me and my nine-year-old daughter. Can't endorse it enough.

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Books and Friends

Books and Friends 
by Justine Camacho-Tajonera

Two years ago, on January 16, 2010, five women, including me, started a book club. We met at Cafe Breton, Podium, Pasig City. We agreed on the rules and I think our first book was Being Happy by Andrew Matthews. Little did I know, at the time, that one of us was in need of a major dose of happiness in her life.

We tackled books like The Girl With a Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson, The Elegance of The Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery, Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert and Battle Hymn of a Tiger Mom by Amy Chua. We purposely asked each other to expand the genres we were used to reading. Later on, we called our little club the BBC (Breton Book Club). We're not a broadcast group, we don't live in Breton...but we have this intimate space called a book club.

We don't meet as regularly anymore and from five we're now down to three. But I still cherish my book club. I learned a lot from these friends and I get to express my love for books fully with them. One of them confessed that she can't talk about books among her work friends. She craves the company of people who can talk about books...just about books and how they've expanded her life.

Just this year, my book club mates met in Paris, France (a coincidence of sorts) and sent me a lovely postcard from Montmarte, rue Foyatier. I really felt I was there with them, holding on to their cups of cafe creme and talking about going to Shakespeare & Co.

One of us says, "But it's a book club!" in retort to questions about love and other things. It is a book club...one that opens up new worlds for us and gives us windows into ourselves. I can be an unabashed bibliophile with these two. Ultimately, that's the gift that they've given me: the opportunity to be a complete nerd and talk all afternoon to evening about books, books, books...but not only that...about life and how the books have made it come alive for me. So...to my book club mates: je t'aime! I love you so. And I look forward to more and more books in our lives no matter how long it takes in between our meetings.

Picture of Cafe Breton from ph.openrice.com. 
Picture of postcard from Montmarte, rue Foyatier from the author

Two Hours in Old Breton

by Justine C. Tajonera

We met at a cafe,
exchanging stories
about books,
words like life
lines, stringing us
together.

Different women, different
lives told in the language
of books owned, lent,
lost, borrowed
and bought.

We laugh as we say,
"But it's a book club!" in
retort to questions about
love and other sundries
of life,
knowing full well
how life
is inextricable with
the books
we read.

We savor our cups
of coffee,
listening, exclaiming,
laughing
over how we've
read the same
and different
books.

(Jan. 19. 2010)
For the Breton Book Club
started last Jan. 16, 2010 at Cafe Breton, Ortigas Center

Image from http://www.flickr.com/photos/44362511@N00/2464795110